Lemoore Council visits gas taxes, Senior Citizen Center rehabilitation, and much more

City officials will also apparently ratify an agreement to hire an interim city manager – until they can find a permanent manager, and will consider a long-awaited bid to rehabilitate the Lemoore Senior Citizens’ Center.

In April, the California State Legislature passed SB 1, enacting a plethora of new taxes to generate revenue for transportation projects, long placed on the shelf due to lack of funding. Some estimates say California will require $130 billion or more to fix the state’s roads, bridges and other facilities. Included in the new taxes are funds for local communities to build up their infrastructure needs as well.
California has not increased its funding for transportation for 23 years – as roads crumbled and funding was scarce. The previous tax increase, improved in 1994 did not include any adjustments for inflation. Senate Bill 1 does. The recently passed bill taxes are indexed to the Consumer Price Index, so they do not lose value each year.

SB1 has multiple revenue sources with multiple roll out dates:

• 12-cent gasoline excise tax increase and annual adjustment for inflation. This

begins in November 2017.

• Resets price-based excise tax on gasoline and annual adjustment for inflation.

This begins in July 2019.

• Transportation improvement fee on registered vehicles. This begins in the spring

• of 2018.

• 20-cent diesel excise tax and annual adjustment for inflation. This begins in

November 2017.

• 4% increase in diesel sales tax. This begins in November 2017.

• $100 per year vehicle registration fee on zero emission vehicles. This is

beginning in July 2020.

• $706 million Transportation Congestion Relief Program (TCRP) loan repayments.

The City of Lemoore can expect revenues to come rolling in in 2017-2018. Current projections indicate that the city can expect to receive $756,000 in transportation funding in the initial year, which is about 45 percent more than the previous year. The projected revenues for Lemoore in 2018-2019 could be $1,063,570, more than double the current fiscal year’s allocation.

Councilmembers will review an employment agreement to hire an interim city manager as they seek a full-time manager. Lemoore Chief of Police Darrell Smith is currently the acting city manager.

Councilmembers are also expected to consider a bid from Carvalho Construction to being rehabilitation of the Lemoore Senior Citizen Center. The project, funded by a Community Development Block Grant, has long been delayed due to excessive bids that exceeded the CDBG allocation.

Carvalho Construction submitted a bid of $1,419,391 to complete the project. Improvements are expected to be made to the long-standing Stebbins Building, the nutrition building, fire sprinklers, ADA improvements and kitchen improvements in the nutrition building.